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COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 25, 2013

China and Japan: vital ties

Japan and China should reconfirm pledges made in the 1978 friendship treaty and set up a forum for dialogue to prevent ties from declining further.
EDITORIALS
Feb 24, 2013

Whose morals will be taught?

The government's panel on improving Japan's education system has decided to have the government make morals a regular subject in schools. The Education Rebuilding Implementation Council, led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and chaired by Kaoru Kamata, president of Waseda University, intends to advise setting...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 24, 2013

Painting a vivid picture of Jane Austen's life through the details of humdrum household objects

THE REAL JANE AUSTEN: A Life in Small Things, by Paula Byrne. Harper, 2013, 400 pp., $29.99 (hardcover)
Japan Times
WORLD
Feb 23, 2013

Keep it clean: World watches Iceland lead the way toward ban on Web porn

Small, volcanic, with a proud Viking heritage and run by an openly gay prime minister, Iceland is now considering becoming the first democracy in the Western world to try to ban online pornography.
COMMENTARY
Feb 23, 2013

Wrestling with the corruption of the Olympics

It has been scarcely a week since the International Olympic Committee announced its intention to exclude wrestling from the 2020 Summer Games, and the campaign to "Save Wrestling" is in full swing.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Feb 22, 2013

Tokyo literary festival writes its opening chapter

Every time David Karashima took a Japanese author to New York or London to do a reading, the local audiences would ask two questions: "Who's the next Haruki Murakami?" and "Why isn't there an international literary festival in Tokyo?"
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 21, 2013

TV firms' hopes ride on 4K shift to 'bigger, smarter'

Japanese TV makers are desperately seeking new strategies to revive their flagging operations, and some of the key points include expanding screen sizes, boosting image quality and making them "smarter" and more user-friendly.
ASIA PACIFIC
Feb 20, 2013

Chinese struggle in 'airpocalypse'

China's toxic air pollution is exacting a toll, as more people suffer coughing attacks and are forced to stay indoors, especially anywhere near Beijing.
EDITORIALS
Feb 20, 2013

Making senior facilities safer

Japan's central and local governments must find out why fires at four group homes for the elderly have resulted in at least 28 deaths since 2006.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 20, 2013

Japan's step toward normalcy

It's hard to understand why some elements in Japan and overseas argue that the Abe Cabinet is causing Japanese politics to swing dangerously right.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2013

The Chinese people have an alternative dream

Last month's controversy at China's Southern Weekly appeared to be about censorship. At a deeper level, it was about alternative national dreams.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 18, 2013

The 'Afraid of China Club' beckons, though free farm trade is still a farce

Given the regional paranoia concerning China's regional ambitions, the Trans-Pacific Partnership could realistically be called the 'Afraid of China Club.'
WORLD / Society
Feb 18, 2013

Americans face massive retirement funds shortfall

For the first time since the New Deal, a majority of Americans are headed toward a retirement in which they will be financially worse off than their parents, jeopardizing a long era of improved living standards for the nation's elderly, according to a growing consensus of new research.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 18, 2013

Congress' committee chairmen push to reassert control

Rep. Dave Camp is chairman of the esteemed House Ways and Means Committee, the oldest of all congressional panels and one with so much influence over the workings of the federal government that its past chairmen were routinely described as the most powerful men in Washington.
BASKETBALL
Feb 17, 2013

Big contributions from post players, bench propel B-Corsairs past Brave Warriors

Senegalese-born center Pape Faye Mour scored a season-high 21 points, including 9-for-10 at the free-throw line, and grabbed 11 rebounds to lead the visiting Yokohama B-Corsairs to a 97-83 victory over the Shinshu Brave Warriors on Saturday night.
Reader Mail
Feb 17, 2013

Shortsighted plan for languages

The Jan. 30 Kyodo article "U.K. plan to limit Japanese worries language teachers" reports on a plan to minimize the teaching of Japanese in U.K. schools. As a result, Japanese may disappear from GCSE exams (for 16-year-olds) by September 2014.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WEEK 3
Feb 17, 2013

Fukushima radiation threatens to wreak woodland havoc

For Yuji Hoshino, mushrooms were a way of life. The 50-year-old farmer grew up watching his father raise shiitake mushrooms on their land at the foot of the mountains in Sano, southern Tochigi Prefecture.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 16, 2013

Abe launches panel to study Japan version of national security council

Shinzo Abe kicks off a study panel tasked with establishing a Japanese version of the U.S. National Security Council, vowing to enhance the flow of information while consolidating command.
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2013

Tojo's granddaughter, Yuko, dies at 73

Yuko Tojo, the granddaughter of executed Class-A war criminal Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, dies of interstitial pneumonia at age 73.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 16, 2013

War on the seabed: the Hebridean shellfishing battle

The problem with bottom-trawling is that it lacks discrimination. The gear plows through the seabed, taking or breaking nearly everything in its path.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Feb 16, 2013

Debate rages over effect of nursing on mother and child

Is breast-feeding far and away the best thing? Or have we done women a disservice by overstating its benefits?
EDITORIALS
Feb 15, 2013

Improve reconstruction efforts

As of mid-January, at least 316,000 people were still living away from homes affected by the 3/11 quake-tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster.

Longform

In 2020, 38% of all households were single-person. That figure is projected to rise to 44.3% by 2050.
The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan